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Apollo Team Announces the Vampire V4page  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 

Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
04 Aug 2017 23:17


Daniel Sevo wrote:

    Ok, so V1200 *will* have a Cyclone V...
   

   
    One side had to be right, other to be wrong.
   
    But please dont mess my dream of V5 with Altera, even higher clock,
    SATA, Memory slots, PS/2, SCSI, Wi-Fi, some Natami basic 3D or w3D compatibile gfx chip (or PCI 66Mhz slots) ... :-) If they dont do an ASIC Mobo first.
   
    Its good new Amiga days even we have some oldsman deseases now!


Rob M

Posts 60
05 Aug 2017 01:10


I notice that it's the same width as a 3½" drive.  Drive bay adapters and a rear I/O bracket would be nice accessories for someone wanting to put in the same case as another system.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
05 Aug 2017 07:54


To answer some questions:

- The Vampire4 is a system this will come out for many AMIGA models.
  (standalone, A500, A2000, A1200, CD32, A3000/4000)
  The spec of these cards will be the same
  Same memory speed, same CPU, same FPU, same SAGA.
  This means a software developed for the A500 will then also run on the A400 and visa versa.

- The Vampire2 will be continued.
  Also support for the Vampire2 will be continued.
 
- The Cyclone V of the Vampire4 is an upgrade to the Cyclone III of the Vampire2. The Vampire4 offers more and faster memory
  The Apollo core does also benefit by have double big CPU caches.

- CPU clock and STRATIX, ARRIA, CYCLONE
  For the Vampire4 the same clock range is planned as for the Vampire2. This means the Vampire4 will because of the bigger caches be slightly faster than the Vampire2. Depending on the application roughly 25% faster.

  Yes with much more expensive FPGA we could increase the clockrate.
  With the Vampire4 in the RIVA video decoding benchmark we can reach with the VAMPIRE2 a performance of 200-240 MHz 68060.
  With the Vampire4 a performance of 240-300 MMz 68060 can be achieved.
 
  Yes with the ARRIA 10 based card one could probably reach a performance equivalent to 500-600 MHz 68060. Such card would then also be faster then top speed 5GHz PC running WINUAE.
 
  The CYLONE 5 that we use is a very good FPGA with listprice of over 110 USD per piece.

  Using a more expensive ARRIA 10 which has list price from 350 USD to 600 USD depending on model speed - would make the whole board to expensive for many users.

What we want is to provide New native AMIGAs, and new CPU cards with very good performance for a reasonable price. And we want to provide these cards in numbers so that many people can offert and get them and hopefully also a good number of new software can come out for them.



Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
05 Aug 2017 08:22


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

To answer some questions:

Yes with the ARRIA 10 based card one could probably reach a performance equivalent to 500-600 MHz 68060. Such card would then also be faster then top speed 5GHz PC running WINUAE.

....

Using a more expensive ARRIA 10 which has list price from 350 USD to 600 USD depending on model speed - would make the whole board to expensive for many users.


Hi Gunnar,

Many people would be willing to buy an Arria 10 Vampire.

The chance of an ASIC being made is very remote compared to an Arria 10 standalone.

I know you would LOVE to have them produced....

Do you have an estimated time of when an Arria 10 standalone could be available?


OneSTone O2o

Posts 159
05 Aug 2017 08:50


Questions:
 
1. ATARI version will come ?
2. Hardware-FPU (fully compatible to the one in 68030/40) ?
3. 68030 compatible PMMU ?
4. Will Apollo Team come to Retrolution with a live demo? (19/20th August, Hanau near Frankfurt, Gubbar was contacted at least twice from different peoples for inviting)


Olivier Landemarre

Posts 147
05 Aug 2017 09:15


Very nice news.

Need now to know when we can start to preorder one?

Thanks a lot for your work


Markus Horbach

Posts 35
05 Aug 2017 11:45


The announcement of the V4 is good news, also the specs are reasonable. All in all a good boost to the classic Amiga. So my speed excitement levels are
0. classic stock amiga ( + classic accelerator card)
1. Vampire V2 is the fastest accelerator today
2. Vampire V4 is the fastest accelerator soon
3. a theroretical Arria based accelerator is even faster than a WinUAE on PC
Some users get to the next excitement level
-4 an ASIC to beat them all
( my opinion, stay SW upgradeable with FPGAs until you are absolutely sure you can not improve ApolloCore/Chipset any more)

But new hardware needs new software to shine. A good example is the 194X - The classic Arcade Game. This is a system seller for an accelerator. Playing Turrican on an Vampire V2/V4 is cool, but makes no sense to me, because it does not improve the game. Quake and Duke3D is an other story, but how to get the maximum performance to a port of this classic games ?
Do you also have in focus an IDE / C-Compiler / macro assembler suite for the 68080 ? Or is the fact that software optimised completely to the apollo core has a too small audience at the moment  compared to the classic amiga hardware in use today ? Is sticking to the already existing 68k SW Dev Tools the right choice for a broad audience for SW developer ? Adding all drivers/patches to Amiga OS 3.x for Vampire is a lot of software development work, too, I assume. I think, especially the Vampire V4 standalone needs more than classic game/application software accelerated to the max speed. I am curious about the standpoint/roadmap of Team Apollo/Vampire to this software development related topic.

Best regards,
Markus.


Lorenzo Pistone

Posts 22
05 Aug 2017 12:22


Maybe the team can attract some investor for the kiosk/embedded market?


Markus Horbach

Posts 35
05 Aug 2017 13:20


>attract ... the embedded market
Thats why I am interested in Apollo V4 standalone. The similarities of 68080 and the Cortex-M I usually work with is obvious:
- CPU Speed around 48 - 216 MHz with DSP functionality
- some MB external RAM
- Video Output up to 1280x720 resolution
- Audio Interface
- mouse/keyboard support
- joystick support
- SDcard mass storage
- (Ether-)network support
- an OS/GUI available
- All manufacturers of Cortex-M embedded uCs offer a free of charge Eclipse based IDE/compiler set with a Tool to create a ready to use SW project. Also a "click setup.exe and configuration of your working environment is done" experience is possible for cross development on a PC.
- Full featured eval boards are cheap and buyable immediately today.

The last 2 points are the weak points to the Amiga flavoured embedded market. I also can hear the head shaking of a project manager if someone proposes to start an Amiga based embedded project in 2017.

Also, investors tend to dictate the direction a project has to take. If the investor is not Petro Tyschtschenko, i assume the classic Amiga support will not the focus of an investor.

Just my 2 cents,
Markus.


Lorenzo Pistone

Posts 22
05 Aug 2017 17:11


About the eval board in the near future will be possible to have some if the v4 start to sell enough, the main problem is the Ide and the lack of some killer application, let say a Scala updated or something similar. Maybe something can be ported from other os to aos3.1 / aros?



Javier R. Santurde

Posts 16
05 Aug 2017 18:08


Hollywood / designer works with vamp. Perhaps even better than Scala.


M Rickan

Posts 177
05 Aug 2017 19:46


Thierry Atheist wrote:

  Do you have an estimated time of when an Arria 10 standalone could be available?

Perhaps before asking for milestones it might be a good idea to understand what is required.

I'd love to understand what the delta is between the two processors - beyond price.


Andy Hearn

Posts 374
05 Aug 2017 19:54


yeah if only from a curiosity perspective ;)


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
05 Aug 2017 20:57


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  What we want is to provide New native AMIGAs, and new CPU cards with very good performance for a reasonable price. And we want to provide these cards in numbers so that many people can offert and get them and hopefully also a good number of new software can come out for them.
 

 
  Thanks. Gladly will buy standalone V4 from Amedia (once public) to enjoy it, even IDE makes more trouble then joy and no standardized case is viable today (hopefully will be by then, and Amiga dealers will also be a "system builders"). Hopefully SDCard boot is standard with V4, so we can go minimal.
 
  When all V4s are done, please keep the ARRIA beast in mind. Would love to get one in next few years, not only fastest but port upgraded, and why not, miniITX or FlexATX size to make system built even easier. Also in 2 years Arria price is likely to drop, plus alternative solutions might appear.
 
  Time meanwhile should envelope software development, and market will be created only if people buy V4s.
 
  Kudos, and thanks for all the fish :-)


Xan X-vision
(Needs Verification)
Posts 35/ 1
05 Aug 2017 21:44


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

To answer some questions:
 

  - CPU clock and STRATIX, ARRIA, CYCLONE
    For the Vampire4 the same clock range is planned as for the Vampire2. This means the Vampire4 will because of the bigger caches be slightly faster than the Vampire2. Depending on the application roughly 25% faster.

 

Thanx a lot for the info. Anything about the USB? 2 or 3 specification?



Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
05 Aug 2017 21:52


Javier R. Santurde wrote:

Hollywood / designer works with vamp. Perhaps even better than Scala.

This depends on needs. Hoolywood is updated and great, but Designer as its app is in some areas stronger, in some harder to come by results then latest Scala.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
05 Aug 2017 22:45


Gunnar, I noticed the 3 "I/O" connectors at the top.. what are those for?

Parallel?  Serial? external disk? ..


Mo Retro

Posts 241
06 Aug 2017 11:13


eric gus wrote:

Gunnar, I noticed the 3 "I/O" connectors at the top.. what are those for?
 
  Parallel?  Serial? external disk? ..

They call them expansion headers. I asked the same question a couple of posts back. Would like to know the functionality and throughput of it.
Is it the same expansion port as on the A500 V2?


Peter Heginbotham

Posts 214
06 Aug 2017 14:54


It would be good to update the wiki with the details about the V4 and a central point for providing answers to the questions raised in this topic.


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
06 Aug 2017 16:20


Renaud Schweingruber wrote:
Vampire V4 is powered by:
- FPGA : Altera Cyclone V A5 (77k LE, 28nm technology)
- RAM : 512MB DDR3 (up to 1GB/s)

Hi Renaud,

EXTERNAL LINK 
The Vampire 4 uses the "Cyclone V E FPGA" "5CEA5"?

In the "pin migration" section there are blue and red lines.
The M383 red line goes from 5CEA2 to 5CEA4 to 5CEA5.
While the U484 and F484 blue lines go from 5CEA2 all the way to 5CEA5 (the FPGA on the Vampire 4) to 5CEA9.

Do the blue lines mean that a 5CEA7 or a 5CEA9 can be put on the Vampire 4, or does the red line ending at 5CEA5 stop it from being able to use the other 2?

There is no MHz speed of FPGAs on that page so it is not possible to see how much faster a 5CEA7 or 5CEA9 might be.

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